A particular friend of junior schooldays contentedly, permanently, answered to the nickname Foufou. I daresay his wife, even his grandchildren, still address him as such well into his seventies. His birthday fell on 1 April and in those homespun times April Fool's Day provided passing annual merriment of schoolboy spoof and larks and leg-pull, during which Foufou was bonnily yo-yoed about after breakfast in a blanket in the bootroom.

Have such innocent japes long gone, such guileless traditions deemed way past their smile-by date? Are those on tomorrow's birthday list even aware any more of folklore's bygone custom? April fools lumbered tomorrow include the Tory Chris Grayling and Plaid Cymru's Dafydd Wigley, broadcasters Phillip Schofield and Chris Evans, and troupers we used to call Hollywood pin-ups, Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell.

Britain's appealing world champion gymnast Beth Tweddle is 25 tomorrow, and a spot-on notable three-quarters of a century is posted by 21-times England wicketkeeper John Murray who, in his memorably fastidious manner, was almost as pluperfect at hitting his marks as young Beth has to be. Sure, Alec Stewart tried to match Murray for style three decades later but with collar, cuffs and cap angle just so, was there ever a more elegantly turned out and studied stumper-bat than paragon of Persil-white polish and neatness, good John Thomas of Lord's?

Birthday candles tomorrow, too, for 61-year old John James Williams – immortal 'JJ', Wales's whippet of their decade of the dragon. I once asked that esteemed Celtic brace of historians, Dai Smith and Gareth Williams, to nominate the best Welsh wing of their time.

An April-the-firster who also loved his football was peppery Major Teddy Wynyard of the Indian Army, an Ashes-winning bat in 1896 and dashing Old Carthusian forward in the 1881 Cup final. Walter Mead of the sad, sloping moustache was "the Essex Treasure" of a slow bowler who took nearly 2,000 first-class wickets but just one in his only Test of 1899. In his dotage he bowled long and proudly for his last county summer of 1913 in tandem with son Harold – before the sprightly boy went off to the autumn trenches to die.

Stephen Fleming, upright former Kiwi captain and leftie ofswarthy substance and style, logs 37 tomorrow and inextricably linked not only by a shared 1 April birthday but for their joint Biggles jape when, in Tiger Moths, they buzzed their England confreres on the ground at Carrara in Queensland in 1991 are John Morris and David Gower. The two were fined £1,000 and sadly the talented, irrepressible Morris never came near another England side. After that tour Gower played only thrice more.

In a way it was a fitting way to go for Gower (53 tomorrow), Goldilocks was forever true to himself and his nature. "Why must a cricketer double as a teetotal monk?" he wouldd ask. Both at the crease and away from it his charms were delectable, his craft carefree. The effortless and casual defined his delight in, and of, his batsmanship.A single effortless stroke of Gower's could demoralise a bowler for a whole session. As the poet Alan Ross put it: "Such is the sweetness of Gower's timing, the fluency and style of his stroke, that the bowler appears to be doing all the work while Gower simply waves him away."

Much the same is consummately captured in this spring'ssumptuous must-buy collection of the late Alan Gibson's cricket prose (Of Didcot and the Demon, Fairfield, £20) of a drowsy summer's evening at Taunton when a brilliant blaze of a Gower innings is cut off at 94 (caught behind, wafting, wouldn't you know). "A dismissal," wrote Gibson, "greeted by the home crowd with as much a sigh as a cheer. And simply, all brightness fell from the air." Precisely.

So hoorays to April and springtime – many happy returns to all and, of course, to Foufou, wherever you are.